Westmeath, Longford and King’s Counties

Westmeath, Longford and King’s Counties formed the north-western part of the province of Leinster, separated from Connaught by the River Shannon. Low-lying and poorly drained, the land in all three counties was of mixed quality, with good arable and pasture existing between large areas of bog. Commentators differed as to the agricultural worth of the area. The Down Survey of the 1650s saw Longford and King’s Counties as the most profitable areas, while Westmeath was very wet, with ‘much red and shaking bog’; but one local landowner, Sir Henry Peirce*, writing in the 1680s, promoted Westmeath as ‘the garden of Ireland ... with excellent arable, meadow and pasture grounds’. Civil Survey, x. 26-50; Add. 26796, f. 4. The promise of rich rewards from the region encouraged a series of plantations, which brought changes to the social and political make-up of the three counties in the century before 1641. King’s County, to the south, was the first to be settled by newcomers in the Marian plantation of the 1550s. The dominant Irish sept, the O’Connors, was completely dispossessed; a government garrison was established at Philipstown; and the other Irish families (including the O’Molloys and O’Dempseys) were forced to make way for New English settlers, such as the Moores, Herberts, Parsons, Giffords and Digbys. Description of Ireland, 1598 ed. E. Hogan (Dublin, 1878), 81-7. Longford, to the north, was traditionally controlled by the O’Farrells (or O’Ferralls), with English lands limited to area around Granard, where Sir Nicholas Maltby had an estate, and the royal castle at Longford. From 1611 the county was formally planted by James I, although progress was hampered by the resistance of the O’Farrells, who sent agents to Dublin and London to protest against the venture, and by 1619 it had still not succeeded in attracting investors. Description of Ireland ed. Hogan, 113-16; CSP Ire. 1608-10, pp. 449, 581; 1611-15, pp. 16-17, 49-52, 108-11; 1615-25, pp. 266-7. In fact, the greatest change in landownership was probably that secured through the private intervention of the 1st duke of Buckingham, who arranged a land-grant to his client, Francis Aungier (who became baron of Longford in 1621). V. Treadwell, Buckingham in Ireland (Dublin, 1998), 51, 55, 135. Westmeath was largely untouched by formal plantation, but it had long before come under the control of a small number of Old English families (including the Nugents, Dillons, Fitzsimons and Fitzgeralds) and by the early seventeenth century the county was dominated by the Nugents, headed by Lord Delvin (who was created earl of Westmeath in 1621), although the stronghold of Athlone, on the Shannon, was under government control. CSP Ire. 1615-25, p. 335; 1647-60, pp. 62-3; Description of Ireland, 105-10.

The scattered pattern of New English settlement in the three counties did not bring peace and stability to the region. During the 1620s there were rumours of rebellion in King’s County and County Longford, and the earl of Westmeath, in particular, was suspected of harbouring Jesuits, and of being ‘busy and ambitious’, and of courting popularity among the Irish. CSP Ire. 1625-32, pp. 220, 474-6, 689. The three elections for the Irish Parliaments held in 1613, 1634 and 1640 show that tensions between native and newcomer were real enough. In 1613 representatives of the O’Farrells and Nugents were sent to complain of electoral abuses in Longford and Westmeath, although both counties eventually returned native Irish and Old English MPs. CJI i. 9, 11. In King’s County the New English candidates (Sir Francis Ruish and Sir Adam Loftus) were unsuccessfully challenged by John McCoghlan and Callagh O’Molloy, backed by the powerful local figure of Sir Terence O’Dempsey. CSP Ire. 1611-14, pp. 359, 439-40. There were no recorded disputes in 1634, although the return of two O’Farrells for Longford, two Dillons for Westmeath, and a McCoghlan for King’s County as knights of the shire suggests that a political point was being made: the only New English county MP was Sir William Colley, for King’s County. CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 65-6; H. Kearney, Strafford in Ire. (Cambridge 1989), 230-4. In 1640 the New English controlled all the boroughs, but the county seats again fell to Old English and Gaelic Irish landowners, with William Parsons (for King’s County) once again being the only New English knight of the shire. CJI i. 219-221; McGrath, Biographical Dict.

The uneasy co-existence of native Irish, Old English and New English throughout the three counties soon erupted into violence after the outbreak of rebellion in October 1641. The rising had spread from southern Ulster to Longford and Westmeath in early November, and by the new year of 1642 the whole area was in arms against the government. D’Ewes (C), 96-7; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 346. The Old English of Westmeath and the O’Farrells in Longford led co-ordinated attacks on their New English neighbours. The Protestant forces became trapped in the fortified towns, while the local landowners defended their own castles (with Lady Gifford at Jordanstown and Lady Offaly at Geashill becoming famous for their heroism); and all looked to Dublin for relief. Bodl. Carte 2, f. 305; Carte 3, ff. 88, 231-2; Carte 4, ff. 8, 174-5. Once the scale of the rebellion had become obvious, and the response of the government had been found wanting, the strongholds began to surrender, and by the time the cessation of arms between the royalists and the Confederate Catholics was signed in September 1643 there was only a handful of Protestant positions left in the region. In the later 1640s the three counties saw considerable military action, as the rival armies crossed from Leinster into Connaught and back again, and repeated attempts were made to capture the neighbouring stronghold of Athlone. The Cromwellian army, which had largely by-passed the Irish midlands in its campaigns to capture the southern ports and the key cities of Limerick and Galway, only turned its attentions to western Leinster in the autumn of 1651. In September of that year a forces under John Reynolds* marched through King’s County and into Westmeath, while Sir Theophilus Jones’s* regiment tried to relieve the garrison at Mullingar, which was besieged by the Catholic Irish. Ludlow, Mems. i. 491; Tanner Lttrs. 342. During the winter Reynolds moved into Longford, ‘which county was before that wholly possessed by the enemy’, and Jones’s men secured the pass between Longford and Westmeath. Ludlow, Mems. i. 511; Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 144. In a propaganda coup, Reynolds persuaded the Irish leader, Colonel Fitzpatrick, to surrender at Streamstown in March 1652; and by the summer, the whole area was under the control of the Protestant forces, who used it as a base for expeditions against the remaining rebels in southern Ulster. Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 153; Ludlow, Mems. i. 517-8, 528.

The support for the rebellion shown by the O’Farrells, Nugents and other leading Catholic families brought swift retribution once the Cromwellian conquest was complete. The native and Old English landowners were transplanted to Connaught, and the land opened for systematic plantation by the adventurers and English soldiers. By October 1653, land to the value of £36,000 had been re-allocated in Westmeath, with a further £26,000 yet to be distributed; in King’s County the figures were £12,600 and £9,900 respectively. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 473. Longford was left out of the adventurers’ scheme, but by 1654 it had also been parcelled out to Old Protestant soldiers who had served in Ireland before 1649. CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 825, 841, 646-7. The land settlement reflected the value of the counties, as shown in the 1654 assessment: Westmeath was rated at £390 a month, King’s County at £240 and Longford came a poor third at £69. An Assessment for Ire. (Dublin, 1654). Despite the process being weighted against them, the real winners of the re-allocation seem to have been the established Old Protestant settlers from inside and outside the three counties, who bought land debentures from the original investors, and extended their own interests over the three counties.

The growing political influence of the Old Protestant interest can be seen during the parliamentary elections of 1654-9. Under the Instrument of Government, Westmeath, Longford and King’s Counties were united to form one constituency, returning two MPs to the Westminster Parliament. The elections were to be held at Mullingar in County Westmeath. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 800. At first sight, the seats seem to have come under the control of the army in August 1654, when two soldiers were elected: Sir Theophilus Jones and Thomas Scott IV. In fact, both of these had strong Old Protestant connections to add to their military experience: Jones’s family had owned land in the region for many decades, and Scott was the brother-in-law of Sir Henry Peirce of Tristernagh in County Westmeath. The election indenture confirms that this was an Old Protestant dominated affair: the dozen named electors included Sir William Parsons, Sir Robert Newcomen, Sir Henry Peirce and Adam Molyneux, while the presiding sheriff was another local man, Henry Sankey of Edenderry in King’s County. C219/44, unfol.; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 193. In 1656 Jones was again returned, alongside Henry Cromwell’s* client, Henry Owen, who had also married into the Peirce family. In 1659 local Old Protestants took both seats, with Francis Lord Aungier and Sir Henry Peirce being elected.

A similar pattern can be seen in the elections for the General Convention of March 1660. Westmeath returned Sir Henry Pierce with the soldier-turned-landowner William Handcock; King’s County elected a pre-1641 settler, Sir George Blundell, with the former sheriff, Henry Sankey; and Longford chose two men of solid New English stock, Adam Molyneux and John Edgeworth. Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 191-2, 193, 198. The dominance of the Old Protestants continued at the Restoration, despite efforts to re-establish some of the Irish landowners who had been loyal to the crown during the rebellion. When the Irish Parliament was revived in 1661, all six county seats went to Protestants – Sankey and Molyneux held Longford, John Weaver and Henry Le Strange were elected for King’s County and Thomas Longe and William Handock represented Westmeath – while the boroughs returned such prominent local figures as Sir George Blundell, Sir Henry Peirce, John Edgeworth and Sir Robert Newcomen. CJI i. 591.